GJÖLL, TROLL VANE-BEARER Gjöll, the Vane-Bearer, brings the power of Thor from his Jarl’s dragonship, his skei, into battle; an honour that is not lost upon his crew nor upon the wretched victims of the Thurs, what the enemies of the Norse call Trolls. Himself a mighty warrior, already spoken of in the tales of Lindisfarena and of Ilkolmkill, Gjöll is known from the lands of the painted to the soft southern coasts as a murderer of woman and child and beast, a terrible creature of what once was legend filled with a fury that is terrible to behold – but which Vörtun’s skalds record for their sagas reverently. Gjöll cares nothing for sagas, for poetry or verse, only the lust found in the kill and the favour of his Jarl, but mostly for the honour of bearing the lightning of Thor himself into battle; for the god of thunder and lightning and strength sees the Jötnar of Jötunheimr and especially the Thurs, who bear his name, as his children, and Gjöll knows that the favour of the gods – in these times of war and darkness – are everything.

LUGUNG, SCYTHE-BRUTE Even amongst the singular monstrosities of the Ysians, the Brutes are something to behold. Experiments of flesh and metal, of muscles grown and bones riveted, each Brute is a unique study of a particular fleshsmith’s craft, an identifiable expression of their depraved mindset, but Lugung could well be stated to be the most crazed of all, a deformed Scythe-Brute driven to frenzy by the constant agony of his alterations and his uncured lameness, for Lugung was taken from the streets of Par-Ys a beggar, a cripple and a forgotten man, eager for the vittals proffered to him and unconcerned as to where it came from, so far had he sank. Thus ensnared, he became a ghoul of sorts, an eater of his fellow man as well as the flesh of almost anything to hand, the better to propel him into insanity and become a benumbed subject of the fleshsmith’s foul undertakings. Yet even the growth and power mutations enforced upon him could not cure the lameness he had since birth, so bad are they, but the Ysians care not: they goad him to battle regardless, promise him the flesh of anything he kills, and a killer Lugung most certainly has become.